A brand identity is a convenient shorthand for a company's products and its overall emphasis, one that is easy for customers to recognize and remember. A company uses a logo -- a graphic that usually contains the company name -- for marketing and branding purposes. A label is an identifier used with a particular product to tell a customer what he is buying as well as who made it. Labels often include logos, which create visual consistency among labels for all of a company's products.

Information

A label must be informative. It may contain information about a company or product that influences the customer's purchasing decision, such as how it can be used, the benefits it provides or company practices that make it worthy of customer support. The central challenge in creating a label is to include all relevant information while still providing an end product that is visually appealing and not cluttered. In contrast, successful logos tend to be simple and spare, easy for a customer to recognize and remember.

Consistency

A logo creates a consistent brand; in fact, changing a logo is a risky step for any business. A company that uses its logo with all of packaging and labels creates a degree of consistency that alerts the customer to the fact that a new product he chooses is made by the same company that makes another product he may already enjoy. Some companies may use different types of labels, however, for different types of products, such as an oral hygiene company that uses red labels for its toothpaste and blue labels for its mouthwash.

Uses

A logo may be used on anything that establishes a company's identity, including signs, brochures, stickers, labels and advertisements. Labels tend to have a more limited use, primarily appearing on physical products packaged for sale. Some businesses may use labels as marketing materials as well, printing and distributing copies, especially if these labels focus on selling points or information that strongly influences customer purchasing decisions.

Legal Requirements

Labels for some types of products must conform to legal requirements regarding the type of information they contain and the warnings they bear. Food product labels must contain nutritional breakdowns and lists of ingredients as well as allergen information, for example. There are few legal requirements for logos, although there are restrictions limiting where a company can display a logo with obscene language or content. A company may trademark a logo in order to ensure that another company does not copy it, diluting the original company's brand.